Friday, January 30, 2015

Special thanks to our friend and colleague, Bill Plum, for the February specials. Teak Publishing highly recommend's Bill's DX Stamp Service, whether for the AM/FM hobbyists, shortwave listener/DXer, utility enthusiast, or an amateur radio operator. We have used his services for many years, and have found his timely service exceptional.
Gayle Van Horn W4GVH

Dear Customer,

Below are specials for February 2015.

If you need a current stamp list or supply list, I can email it to you. Stamp list now shows the countries with their own international forever stamps that I have in stock.

NEWS: Lithuania joined the Euro community Jan 1, 2015. Stamps denominated in national currency will be valid until Dec. 31, 2016!

NEW RATES:
Denmark: from 16,00 kr to 16,50 kr for priority letter. The 16 kr will cover economy rate.
Finland: Feb. 9th increase: from 1,00 to 1,10 for 20g Priority letter. No problem, Finnish forever stamp covers the new rate.
Russia: from 26 R. to 30 Rubles. I have makeups available. 25c each
Spain: increased 1 Jan from 0,92 to 1,00 euro. I will have makeups by mid-Feb at 25c ea.

NEW PRICES:
Spain/Canary/Balearic: now $2.00, up from $1.80

IN STOCK AGAIN: Russia

STAMPS ON BACK ORDER: Morocco.

BACK ORDERS will now be sent with your next stamp order, unless I have several to send you. Am losing money by sending out one at a time. Sorry.

The most interesting event from
last weekend’s program was the inaudibility, in much of North America, of the
Sunday 0230-0300 UTC transmission on 5745 kHz. The signal was somewhat better in
Europe. I tried several remote receivers and finally found a good signal on a
receiver in Venezuela.

The experiment with the
thirty-second tuning signal seems to have succeeded, so we will do it again this
weekend. After the voice introduction, the MFSK32 RSID will be transmitted once.
If Fldigi is not tuned to an audio frequency near 1500 Hz, use the tuning signal
to center the tuner to the correct frequency.

The bonus mode of the week will
be CW. There is no RSID for CW, so, if you use Fldigi to help “copy” the CW,
change the mode manually. It will probably also help to set the CW transmit
speed to 15 WPM so that Fldigi receives at or near the 15 WPM used for the bonus
CW transmission. …

Here is the lineup for VOA
Radiogram, program 96, 31 January/1 February 2015, all in MFSK32 except for the
bonus CW:

The Mighty
KBC will transmit a minute of MFSK64
(image of a great looking radio dial in the dark) Saturday at about 1230 UTC on
6095 kHz, and Sunday at about 0130 UTC (Saturday 8:30 pm EST) on 7375 kHz. Both
frequencies are via Germany. Send reports to Eric at themightykbc@gmail.com
.

Thanks for your reports from
last weekend. The MFSK image gallery will include a dearth of pictures from the
UTC Sunday 0230 transmission because of the aforementioned poor propagation.
Last weekend I had problems opening images attached to everyone’s emails, so I
apologize to anyone whose MFSK image decode was left out of the program 94
gallery.

Love nostalgic radio from the 1950's and 1960's ? McFarland and Company, know to many who follow their non-fiction and academic books, will welcome The Birth of Top 40 Radio. "Top 40" was the preeminent American radio format of the 1950s and 1960s. Although several radio station group owners offered their own versions of the format, the AM stations owned by Todd Storz and his father were acknowledged as the principal developers of Top 40 radio, and the prime movers in making it a nationwide ratings and revenue success. The Storz Stations in St. Louis, Omaha, New Orleans, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Miami are profiled in this book, as are various Storz air personalities and executives.McFarland offers many books covering radio, and new ideas about radio and music, are always welcomed. Many of their books cover the golden age of radio, Cold War radio, Christian radio, payola and amateur radio. Find out more about this and many other titles at www.mcfarlandandpub.com and search key words. The Birth of Top 40 Radio, is also available from Amazon, as a Kindle or paperback edition athttp://www.amazon.com/Birth-Top-40-Radio-Revolution/dp/0786476303/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422642411&sr=1-1&keywords=the+birth+of+top+40+radio

Do you have a new book ? Teak Publishing will review your book, and publish it on the Shortwave Central blog. Please email Gayle Van Horn at w4gvh@frontier.com with your information.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Effective February 1, there are key frequency changes from Radio Australia. There will be an end of shortwave transmissions (including DRM), from the Brandon site, and a reduction in transmission hours from the Shepparton transmitter site. There are no further DRM transmissions currently planned.

In combination with the end of the HF Relay services from 14 January 2015, this represents a major change in content delivery for Radio Australia, with an increasing focus on local FM re-transmission and satellite delivery of programming.

The following revised broadcast schedule supersedes all previously published plans. Radio Australia will operate on three frequencies, on a 24 hour broadcast schedule. Earlier reports of broadcasting 0900-2100 UTC on 6080, and 6150 are incorrect.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Mr Muneer K. P. in Sharjar, United Arab
Emirates tells us that he received a QSL card from Deutsche Welle early last
year, verifying his reception of their relay broadcast from the nearby Dhabaya
transmitter station in Abu Dhabi. This
relay transmission on 15640 kHz is important to him, because the first
shortwave broadcast he ever heard was from Deutsche Welle in 1982 while he was
visiting in the home of a friend. At the
time, he was living in his home state, Kerala, in South India, and he wrote to
Deutsche Well at their office in New Delhi, requesting a schedule. Listening to the broadcast from Germany, and
receiving a copy of the magazine “Tune In “sparked
an interest in the monitoring of the international shortwave bands.

Throughout
the Indian sub-continent, there are several major river systems, running from
the higher land areas, down through the populated plains and into the nearby
adjacent ocean. On the western side of
the sub-continent, a system of five rivers runs from the edge of the high
Himalayas down into the verdant Punjab lands where they combine into the great
Indus River and onwards into the Arabian Sea at Karachi.

On the eastern side of the
sub-continent, a system of three rivers runs from the high Himalayas down into
the verdant lands and onwards where they combine into the massive delta areas
at “The
Mouths of the Ganga”and onward into the Bay of
Bengal. These eastern rivers are known
by several different names in various local and international languages, though
the better known names would be:

* Ganges & Padma originating in Uttarakhand

* Brahmaputra-Jamuna originating in the Angsi Glacier in Tibet

* Meghna originating in the hilly areas
of East India

The confluence of these three rivers
in the “Mouths of the
Ganges”forms the
largest delta area on planet Earth, with a myriad of small and larger islands
stretching 1500 miles across from Kolkata to Chittagong. During the past nearly half century, new islands
and extensions to adjacent landscapes with a total area of more than 40 square
miles have been formed by silt flowing down from the high mountain ranges.

Ancient history informs us that the
earliest settlers came into the territory now known as Bangladesh some 4,000
years ago; these were the early Dravidians and proto-Burmese peoples. The ancient Greeks and Romans were familiar
with the people, whom they called Gangaridai, that is the people of the land of
the Ganges.

Islam came to Bangladesh while part
of India in the 1100s AD; and when European explorers entered the territories
for trade some 400 years later, it is suggested that the Bengal territory was
the wealthiest part of the Indian
sub-continent. In that era, the
Portuguese, French and Dutch showed an interest in the area, and the English
gained control in 1757.

Bangladesh has known its share of
mega-disasters, and in 1943, it is reported that three million people died in
what is called the Great Bengal Famine.
Then in 1970, some authorities estimate that one million people died
overnight during a horrendous cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. If that figure is correct, it would have to
be the worst flooding upon planet Earth since the time of the Flood in the days
of Noah. Then in 1988 disastrous
flooding in the delta areas resulted in 30 million refugees.

Bangladesh, East Bengal, was
separated from India and became the Eastern Wing of Pakistan at the time of
Partition, midnight between August 14 & 15, 1947. And then again, Bangladesh declared
independence, and then ultimately achieved its independence from Pakistan on
December 16, 1971.

These days, Bangladesh is just a
small country territorially, stretching less than 500 miles from north to south
and less than 300 miles wide, yet the population density is one of the most
concentrated upon planet Earth with more than 150 million people. The land areas of the country are almost
entirely surrounded by India with a short border with Burma; and their capital
city is Dacca-Dhaka, with 12 million inhabitants.

The border between Bangladesh and
India contains the strangest anomaly of enclaves and exclaves in any part of
the world. It is estimated that there
are 300 of these little territories that are separated from the nearby mother
territory, covering a combined total of 50,000 acres and containing 150,000
people. In some places, the enclave is
separated from the mother territory by less than a mile, and it contains a
separate territory within its own borders.

The
first prominent wireless experimenter in old British India was a Bengali
scientist, Dr. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. He was born in Munshiganj near Dhaka (East
Bengal) in 1858, though he performed his wireless experiments in neighboring Calcutta in West Bengal (India).

It was towards the end of the year
1894 that Bose began his experimentation with wireless; and in November 1895,
he gave a public demonstration in the Calcutta Town Hall with Bengal’s Lieutenant
Governor Sir William Mackenzie in attendance.
In this public demonstration, Bose transmitted wireless signals at a
wavelength of just ½inch over a
distance of 75 ft through several solid walls.
He also used a wireless signal to ring a bell at a distance, and to fire
a gun remotely.

On two separate occasions, Bose gave
public lectures in London England in which he presented details of his wireless
experiments in Calcutta India. His 1897
lecture was before the Royal Institution, and two years later his lecture was
before the Royal Society. In his 1899
presentation, Bose gave details of the coherer receiver that he had developed,
and it is understood that the young Italian experimenter Marconi incorporated
the Bose coherer in his own subsequent public demonstrations in England.

There is no known historic record in
the earlier days of any wireless or radio experimentation in the territory that
became Bangladesh, neither were there any early wireless communication stations
in this area. Perhaps there were a few
expatriate and local amateur radio station operators on the air in places like
Dacca and Chittagong before World War 2, but no known records have been
discovered.

There was just one lone radio
broadcasting station on the air in the Bangladesh territory while it was part
of India under the British Raj. In those
days, All India Radio was beginning to establish its nationwide empire of
mediumwave and shortwave radio stations throughout India, and one such facility
was installed in Dacca.

This new station that was installed
in Old Dacca in 1939 was inaugurated with due ceremony on December 16 with 5 kW
on 1167 kHz under the callsign VUY. The
studio for AIR VUY were installed in a rented house at 62 Nazimuddin, Road
Dacca 11, though this was soon afterwards transferred to Shahbag, which lies in
the capital city area between Old Dacca & New Dacca. The transmitter was installed in nearby
suburban Kallayanpur. The original
location on Mazimuddin Road is now the locale for the Sheikh Burhanuddin
College.

At the time of Partition in 1947,
the lone radio broadcasting station VUY with its 5 kW on 1167 kHz was the only
station in all of East Pakistan.

DX Reporter Salahuddin Dolar of
Rajshahi alerted us to the fact that Bangladesh Betar celebrated its important
75th
Diamond Jubilee anniversary with four days of congratulatory events beginning a
few weeks ago on December 15.

The FCC has ordered an unlicensed California religious broadcaster, who
sometimes broadcast on a frequency in the 40 meter phone band, to shut down his
station. The FCC’s Los Angeles District Office on December 31 issued a
Notice
of Unlicensed Operation to Martin K. Elliott of Inyokern,
California. The FCC said it issued the Notice in response to a complaint
of unlicensed operation on multiple HF frequencies, including some allocated to
aeronautical stations. The FCC said its agents used radio direction-finding
techniques to confirm that signals on 6280 kHz and 11,595 kHz were emanating
from a residence located near Inyokern, and that property records indicated that
Elliott was the current owner and resident.

“The Commission’s records show that no license was issued for operation of a
station on either the frequencies of 6280 kHz or 11595 kHz at this location,”
the FCC wrote. “Unlicensed operation of this radio station must be discontinued
immediately.”

The pirate station, which identified
itself as “YHWH,” was not cited for operating on Amateur Radio frequencies,
although ARRL Official Observers had monitored the station in the past on 7185
kHz LSB. One short-wave listener said the operator of YHWH changed frequencies
regularly, and the station had not been heard on the ham bands for at least
several months.

The FCC warned Elliott that operation of radio transmitting equipment without
a valid authorization violates federal law and could subject the operator to
severe penalties, including, but not limited to, substantial monetary
forfeitures, equipment seizure, and criminal sanctions.

The Commission gave him 10 days to respond. The FCC said its Notice
“does not preclude this office from pursuing additional sanctions based upon our
investigation of this incident.”
(Larry Van Horn N5FPW)

Sunday, January 25, 2015

This is the second frequency update for the 2014-2015 Winter edition of the International Shortwave Broadcast Guide. This e-book from Teak Publishing, can be purchased at Amazon.com for U.S. $4.00, and is available at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QU8LC6M

All time references are UTC, frequencies in kHz (kilohertz) // indicates heard on a parallel frequency. Broadcast are daily unless otherwise indicated.

additional information
The ABC has announced major cuts to Radio Australia shortwave transmissions
- from Jan. 14 all overseas relays (via Dhabbaya, Kranji and Palau) will cease.
- from Jan. 31 the Brandon shortwave site will close, output from Shepparton
Broadcast will be reduced from six full time transmitters to only three transmitters, all operating 24 hours per day with the following shortwave schedule:
0900-2100 on 6080 6150 9580
2100-0900 on 15240 15415 17840

Review of ABC Radio Australia frequencies via Shepparton, Australia, which are to be cancelled on Jan.31, according to the announced major cuts as:

Regular transmissions will be made on January 24 - 25 and on Saturday, January 31. Time slots are available so please get in touch as soon as possible if you want to book airtime for these dates. Good listening!(Ronny Forslund/R Revival/Tom Taylor)

German Weather Service (DWD) will begin transmitting weather information for the Baltic Sea and North Sea. Broadcast will be three times a day from their site in Pinneberg, near Hamburg. Broadcast will commence on April 1, 2015 on the following schedule:

The 17th edition of the popular "Broadcasting in Russian" Handbook, edited by the St. Petersburg DX Club, has been released at the end of December 2014. The Handbook features various radio stations that transmit programs in the Russian language on short wave and medium wave, from December 23, 2014.

Station listings include frequency and program schedules, transmitter location and power, target areas, postal addresses, phone/fax numbers, Web sites, social network pages, e-mail addresses as well as QSL policy info. The schedules are generally valid until March 29, 2014 (i.e. during B14 broadcasting season).

The Handbook is only distributed as a hard copy. Volume is 52 pages of A5 size. Please address your purchase requests to : Alexander Beryozkin, P.O.Box 463, St. Petersburg, 190000, Russia
or by e-mail: dxspb@nrec.spb.ru.

The National Council for Radio and Television has renewed the license of "Radio Company" Gala "(call sign "Gala Radio") due to the change in the call sign "Radio EU." It is reported by the correspondent of A '.

In particular, this decision is based is now undergoing a change of owner. The new owner is a European company, which owns a network of radio stations in the EU, in particular in the Netherlands. The name of the new company, the owner is not disclosed. It should be noted that earlier in "Gala Radio" expressed an interest in the Dutch company Ad Venture Radio.

Ukraine increases the broadcasting in Russian and English languages. From January 12 Russian service on 1431 kHz VSRU been running 1600-2000 UTC. A British service VSRU (RUI) has for the second day after the transfer of American radio center WRMI in Okeechobee, Florida in 0030-0100 on 7455 kHz (azimuth 285 degrees). First gear from there in 2330-2400 on 11580 kHz (azimuth 44 degrees).
(Alexander Egorov, Ukraine /www.dxing.ru/Play DX 1634)

Due to a cancellation from March 29 of all Radio Taiwan International relays via Issoudun, France; RTI Russian service announced test broadcasts from Jan.22 till Jan.31 via transmitter site in Tamsui, Taiwan as follows:

All times UTC
1400-1500 on 11885 and 1700-1800 on 7385
These tests broadcasts will be transmitted in parallel with Issoudun relays:

It
is rather obvious that a good reception report should contain detailed
information that is heard from a radio broadcasting station, and it is
preferable that this information should extend over a period of at least 20
minutes or more. However, there are
occasions when a shorter reception report may be acceptable.

Back on July 17, 1986, I was
traveling by car for an appointment in a country area in Indiana in the United
States. In a lonely isolated location
where electrical interference would not be expected, I stopped the car and
turned on the radio receiver. The
desired station was WQTC on 1520 kHz in the town of Bryan, in the neighboring
state Ohio.

Four years earlier, I had visited
this mediumwave radio station in Bryan when it was on the air under an earlier
callsign, WBNO. At that time, this
station was on the air with the usage of solar energy electricity, the first
and only station in the United Sates that was using solar panels for this
purpose. I already had received a QSL
from WBNO with ½kW on 1520kHz.

However, the station had been sold
and under the new management, the callsign was changed to WQTC, still with
solar power and still with ½kW on the same
channel 1520 kHz. However, I did desire
a QSL card acknowledging the new callsign WQTC.

Unfortunately, even though
mediumwave station WQTC was on the air in the adjoining state, yet reception on
the radio was terrible, with lots of QRN and QRM; local electrical noise and
interference from other stations.
However, at the bottom of the hour, I did hear just two identifiable
words, “Bryan
Radio”.

And so, I did send a reception
report and a prepared QSL card to the station in Bryan Ohio. In the reception report, I apologized for
such a brief report, but I stated that I had heard just two identifiable words,
and that these two words indicated an advertisement for a radio shop in Bryan,
or it was part of the station identification announcement.

In due course, the prepared QSL
card, rubber stamped onto a Post Office Postal Card, came back to my home
address, duly signed and rubber stamped with the old callsign WBNO, though the
new callsign WQTC was also shown on the card.

A verified reception report
containing just two words? You had
better do better than that!

It
is known that at least five radio broadcasting stations, or major components
thereof, are lying at the bottom of the ocean in the ship that was carrying the
equipment at the time. Four of these
sunken ships were due to enemy action, and one was the result of a fierce
winter storm.

Back in the year 1940, soon after
the onset of the European Conflict, a 100 kW shortwave transmitter,
manufactured at the Marconi company in Chelmsford England, was shipped out to
Singapore Island. It was intended that
this transmitter would be installed at a new shortwave station still under
construction, adjacent to the early Radio Malaya station at Jurong on the
western side of Singapore island. When
activated, this station was to act as a relay for the BBC London, with coverage
into Asia and the Pacific.

However, due to an attack by an
enemy submarine, the ship was sunk en route and the entire cargo was lost,
including the electronic equipment for the new BBC shortwave relay
station. Instead, a 50 kW RCA shortwave
transmitter was subsequently consigned to Singapore, but before it could be
activated, it was removed and taken to Barbados in the Caribbean where it was
installed for Cable & Wireless at Bearded Hall under the callsign VPO.

Back in the year 1941, plans were
laid for the installation of a megapowered mediumwave station at a secret
underground location near Crowborough in England. This station was intended to beam surreptitious programming in various
languages to continental Europe, and also to act as a BBC relay station for
coverage into the same continental areas.

At the time, a super powered 500 kW
transmitter was nearing completion at
the RCA factory in Camden New Jersey which had been ordered by NBC for
mediumwave WJZ at Bound Brook, New Jersey.
However, the FCC had imposed a 50 kW power limit for mediumwave stations
in the United States and NBC-WJZ no longer needed this huge transmitter.

China demonstrated an interest in
procuring this megalithic transmitter, but while negotiations were still underway,
the British government arranged to purchase it and have it shipped across the
Atlantic. The transmitter was
re-engineered for 600 kW, disassembled into smaller units, crated and stowed
separately into several different ships.

One of these cargo ships, carrying
the antennas and towers, was sunk in the Atlantic by an enemy submarine and the
equipment was lost. Very hurriedly, new
towers and antennas were manufactured in the United States and freighted across
the Atlantic where it was all installed above ground for the underground
American transmitter, known as Aspidistra, at Crowborough.

During the latter half of the
European Conflict, PWI Press Wireless International, manufactured and shipped
across the Atlantic numerous transmitters, large and small, for use in islandic
and continental Europe. Some of these
shipments contained their famous 40 kW shortwave transmitter, and other
shipments contained complete mobile radio broadcasting stations. The mobile stations usually contained a 400
watt transmitter, always capable of high speed Morse Code, and sometimes also
capable of voice transmission.

Much of this radio equipment was
manufactured at their new factory quite near to their large shortwave station
at Hicksville on Long Island, New York and then shipped across the
Atlantic. PWI states that at least one
of these mobile stations was sunk by an enemy submarine in 1944, and that
station still lies to this day on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Also in the year 1944, Lord Louis
Mountbatten expedited the construction of a large shortwave station at Ekala, a
dozen miles north of Colombo in Ceylon, as it was known in those days. A large shipment of radio equipment,
including electronic items from the Marconi factory at Chelmsford and redundant
antenna systems from the Isle of Wight, were shipped out from England.

However, the entire consignment was
lost to enemy submarine action in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri
Lanka. Ultimately, a new consignment of
equipment was sent out from England, and this was installed at the SEAC
installation at Ekala, where it was in use for many years for the relay of
programming by the BBC London, the Voice of America and Adventist World
Radio. This SEAC station also carried
programming on behalf of SLBC, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.

Back in 1965, Ronan O’Rahilly in
England ordered a 50 kW mediumwave transmitter from Continental Electronics in
Dallas Texas for installation on the ship Mi Amigo, which was on the air at the
time as the famous pirate radio station, Radio Caroline. During that era, Continental was constructing
several 50 kW mediumwave transmitters, Model 317C, for various clients.

However, the BBC suddenly needed two
50 kW mediumwave transmitters for its new Central Africa Relay Station at Francistown in
Botswana and entrepreneur O’Rahilly agreed to allow the BBC to take the No
12 transmitter that he had ordered. The BBC also took an additional unit, No 13,
so O’Rahilly agreed
to accept transmitter No 14 in this series which he installed on board the Mi
Amigo.

Some 15 years later, on March 19,
1980, the ship Mi Amigo encountered a Force 10 storm and she drifted for 10
nautical miles before running aground on the Long Sand Bank. The ship sank next day where she now lies in
10 feet of water in the Thames Estuary out from London.

The 50 kW mediumwave transmitter also went down
with the ship, and that is where it lies
to this day, at the shallow bottom of the North Sea!